This dissertation investigated the hypothesized interdependent nature of subjective and objective elements of conscious experience within a spiritual context. This was done by studying the spontaneous mental imagery (the mirações) of people under treatment in the Centro Espírita Obras de Caridade Príncipe Espadarte (the Center). The Center is a congregation of the Barquinha, a Brazilian syncretic religious system that uses the psychoactive beverage Ayahuasca (locally called Daime) as a sacrament. The ethnographic method, involving experiential observation of the religious and symbolic universe of the Center, was used for investigating the Centers history, the healing techniques implemented during rituals, the concepts of healing and sickness among healers and patients, and the relationship between mirações and the healing process. Several narratives about mirações and healing experiences were collected on site, and five were analyzed more carefully. The conjunction of ingestion of Daime and the participation in the ceremony appeared to reliably promote the occurrence of the mirações. These were considered by the participants as a process of inner perception, the moment when different entities (physical body, thoughts, feelings, culture, emotions, mind, soul, spiritual space, etc.) become connected within their conscious awareness. The experience of mirações was considered to be the source of healing. At the Center, sickness is considered to have a spiritual source, being understood as an unbalance of forces. Healing is considered to be accomplished when one puts oneself into a hypothetical current of healing energy that is felt during the ceremonies. Mirações mediated and made conscious a coherent and workable whole that encompassed the ritual, the Daime, the processes of self-transformation/ knowledge/ exploration, elements of the individuals consciousness and physiological condition, and factors in a spiritual space. Mirações were believed to occur in a spiritual space, thought to be nonmaterial and multidimensional, nesting and informing the material world. This spiritual space is perceived as basic, generating dispositions, intentions, and meanings, and as containing within it the physical and psychological levels of existence. The exploration of that space during a ceremony was considered to accelerate ones spiritual development.
Referências para citação: MERCANTE, Marcelo Simão. Images of healing: spontaneous mental imagery and healing process of the baraquinha, a brazilian ayahuasca religious system. San Francisco/Califórnia. Degree of Doctor, Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center, 2006.
